Friday, October 1, 2010

Scientists isolate, hold, photograph individual Rubidium 85 atom: A team of four researchers from Otago's Physics Department, led by Dr Mikkel F. Andersen, used laser cooling technology to dramatically slow a group of rubidium 85 atoms. A laser-beam, or "optical tweezers", was then deployed to isolate and hold one atom - at which point it could be photographed through a microscope.
The researchers then proved they could reliably and consistently produce individual trapped atoms - a major step towards using the atoms to build next-generation, ultra-fast quantum-logic computers, which harness the potency of atoms to perform complex information-processing tasks.